"When Hootie and the Blowfish hit
number one is the day America gave up."
GetsAn
interview with Sloppy SecondsBy:
Alex Sandell

Sloppy Seconds. As I stated before; they're
more than just a punk band, they may be the best band of all
time. With classics like "I Don't Wanna Be a
Homosexual", "So Fucked Up", "Human
Waste", "The Pop My Dick Song", "I can't Slow
Down", "Ice Cream Man", "Lynchtown USA",
"Yuppies", "Jerry's Kids",
"Underground", "Hiptune",
"Blackmail", and "I Want 'Em Dead" you would
think it was time to close the book and put them in the rock 'n'
roll hall of fame.

But there's more . . .

A brand new album called "More Trouble
Than They're Worth" was just released, and another batch of
instant classics such as "The Queen of Outer Space",
"You Got a Great Body, But Your Record Collection
Sucks", "Why Don't Lesbians Love Me?", "Let's
Kill The Trendy", "Just Because You're a Girl",
"Killing Myself" and "Forced to Suck" were
thrown into the punk rock pile of perfect "get drunk and
kill your girlfriend" tunes.

Parting ways with their longtime original
guitarist, a lot of people didn't think Sloppy could put out
another classic album with someone new playing lead. They were
wrong. Ace (Spice) Hardwhere? exceeds all expectations and adds a
grinding three-chord punk sound to the band's trademark style.
"More Trouble Then They're Worth" makes up for the five
year wait between albums, and then some.

I spent a couple hours talking with BA, lead
singer of the band, about the past, the present and where things
will be going in the future. Here's what he had to say.

The Juicy Cerebellum (JC):It's
good to hear some original "Sloppy" material again.
With five years in-between (not counting your live album), it's
been a long, dry haul for us die-hard "Sloppy Seconds"
fans to get through. What's the band been doing between albums
(other than drinking beer)?

BA (BA): We did two tours
of Europe, the first with a temporary guitar player, and

BA takes a break from screaming into the mic
and holds on for dear life

by the time we went back again, we'd
enlisted Spice, our new guitar player. After that, we put
out the "Live: No Time For Tuning" album while
we were shopping around trying to decide what label to do
the next record with. The most important thing is we came
to terms with Taang! that we weren't going to do a third
album with them. That was real pleasant to get that
behind us, so . . . in the spring we started talking with
Dexter Holland (lead singer of "The
Offspring" - Alex the editor and

your helpful guide through the
punk rock universe) and in, I believe in September,
we formally signed a contact and we started recording
right after the first of this year.

(JC): So how is Nitro working out for
you guys so far?

(BA): So far we're very happy. The
good thing about Nitro is that there's the benefits of being on a
major label but you're primarily dealing with people who have had
the experience of playing in a punk rock band. They seem to have
everything on the ball. They're really persistent in doing
promotion which was probably the biggest factor determining that
we would sign with them over any label in that they have a really
good promotional machine which is probably the most important
thing to us. It's nice to have the word get out to people and
that the proper push is put behind it.

(JC): The video for "Fifteen
Minutes or It's Free" being a good example.

(BA): Yeah, it's directed
by a guy named Neal Toussaint who has been a cameraman on
a lot of major Hollywood films. The two I know right off
are "Batman Forever" and "Renaissance
Man". He's done other music videos, but I can't
remember any of the bands offhand.

(JC):
Well, Sloppy Seconds would be the best, obviously.

(BA):
Obviously (laughs). The video is a great conceptual
song about the night of this poor, put-upon pizza man
having

Bo'Ba proves he's so much more than just
another guy in a Michael Bolton T-Shirt.

to deliver a pizza to a house where
Sloppy Seconds are the house band (laughs yet again).

(JC): Are you guys gonna try and get it
on the big networks such as MTV and Much Music?

(BA): Well it's definitely budgeted
and conceptualized with mass-media in mind. So it'll definitely
be submitted to MTV, and it'll probably be on the next video
compilation Nitro is affiliated with. It'll probably make the
rounds onto several punk video compilations in addition to being
serviced to a bunch of community access shows, and everything
across the country. So . . . it's definitely gonna get the full
working.

(JC): Is there any truth to the rumor
that I've heard about unwanted policemen interfering with the
video, thinking that it (the cops in the video - Alex the
editor who interrupts even himself) was the real thing?

(BA): Um, there was, yeah, that did
happen, but that wasn't something that affected the shooting
schedule other than postposting the shooting of the party scene
one day.

(JC): I just saw the video for
"Veronica" for the first time and thought it
was pretty good for what it was. Seeing Danny (ex-Sloppy
guitarist - Alex the editor interrupting himself again) had
me wondering what you were looking for in a new
guitarist? Did you try to find someone that played the
same as Danny, or did you want to add something new to
the "Sloppy" mix?

(BA): The main concern that we had
was that we didn't want someone joining the band who had no
stylistic leanings anywhere out of punk rock. It had to be
somebody that could bring a strong rock 'n roll influence because
we listened to a lot of hard rock and pop music before we ever
started playing in a punk band. A couple of the things that
really sold us on Ace (Spice) was the fact that he had a great
attitude and just wanted to go out and play and make the band
successful, and two of his biggest influences were Agnus Young
(AC/DC) and Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick).

(JC): Had he heard of the band before he
auditioned?

(BA): He was aware of us, but
actually he just auditioned because he read the ad we put out for
the kind of person we were looking for, and he thought he fit the
bill. And it turned out he really did.

(JC): I was really surprised with how
good he did. I think the album is just as good as the rest of
them, with exception to . . . you can take constructive
criticism, can't ya?

(BA): (Laughs) I suppose.

(JC): The lyrics don't seem quite as
raunchy as they did on your previous albums. There's nothing as
"in your face" as "So Fucked Up". Things seem
toned down a bit. I was wondering if that was a conscious effort?

(BA): I don't think so. Maybe
they're not as prominently placed, but I was going through the
songs for potential airplay and about three-quarters of the songs
have pretty objectionable lyrics. "Forced to Suck" is
pretty rank.

Steve pounds the drums like no sellout could!

(JC): "Forced to
Suck", which deals with the issue of selling out,
and actually seems to come down hard on the "don't
make money. don't go on MTV" type punkers, had me
wondering if you are worried about abandoning your DIY
(Do It Yourself) fans?

(BA): Well, that is directly what
the song is written about. That was part of the reason we put it
in the song, because we've done it in a lot of interviews. You
know, ultimately our goal is to reach as many people as we can.
Speaking as a band that's been fucked over by a lot of supposedly
"DIY" labels, that's a lot more demeaning than the kind
of blood-thirsty attitude you'd expect from a major label.

(JC): Like you say in the lyrics, you
may as well get fucked by "the biggest dick" you can.

(BA): Yeah, we anticipate, you
know, I'm not sure if this is true, but I've been told Maximum
Rock 'N Roll (a very DIY magazine - Alex the big gigantic
punk rocker from cyberspace) won't even review records that
are released on Nitro. This is what we want people to understand:
Nitro isn't a major label, it's got the trappings, maybe, of a
"well-connected" label, but it's run by the singer of a
punk rock band (Offspring).

(JC): Since you're on a well-connected
label, do you plan on doing a big tour for the album?

(BA): Yeah! The Nitro package tour
is probably this fall (the tour is now in full-swing! Go out
and see the band when they hit your neck of the woods! - Alex the
promoter guy). Then most probably we'll get on a tour set up
as a label package tour. There's a lot of great bands on the
label, so that would be cool.

(JC): This is unrelated to the tour -
but is a pretty big deal on the the album - you have Jason
Maclain (the guy who sings "You Gotta Keep 'Em
Separated" in the Offspring single that made the band a
household name - Alex the guy who thinks that "keep 'em
separated" guy was the best part of the song) singing
vocals on "Smashed Again". Did you hook up with him
through Dexter Holland?

(BA): Before we met Dexter, what
happened is, the way we indirectly met Nitro was through Maclain
who contacted us saying he thinks Nitro and Sloppy would be a
perfect match. So, first of all, we were really impressed this
guy was a big fan. I mean, this guy has been on MTV countless
times, and we were really happy we were one of his favorite
bands. He was really instrumental in our signing to the label so
we thought it would be a great thing to have him sing on our
album.

(JC): Okay, I guess what I'm leading up
to is the inevitable question: are you guys looking for Rancid or
Green Day level fame?

(BA): Well, that'd be great. We'd
love to be as successful as we possibly can with this band but
that's never been the point. You know, we can't really find a way
to mainstream our sound. It's more been a deliberate effort to
bring the masses around to our way of thinking.

(JC): Not only do you have the infamous
Offspring guy appear, but also, from the sounds of it, Mr. T. How
did you guys ever get Mr. T to lend his famous voice to a Sloppy
Seconds album?

(BA): We met him a
few years ago. When he saw me with my chains and
everything and saw my name was BA he rushed out and said
"we gotta talk. We gotta get pictures." So we
did a videotaping of Mr. T and me crawling around in this
comic book store and that's when he taped his prediction
for Sloppy Seconds.

(JC): Going even
further into the record, I have to ask what the
inspiration was behind one of my favorite songs,
"You Got a Great Body But Your Record Collection
Sucks"?

BA poses with "BA" (Mr. T)

(BA): Well that song is kinda a
personal favorite of mine on the record, too. It really is about
people who have no consideration ever for what they put into
their headphones. What I've said a lot of time is that when
Hootie and the Blowfish hit number one is the day America gave
up. You know, to me, it's the day when "pop culture"
did not care. This song is about the person that cares more about
home furniture than they do about music.

(JC): That seems like a pretty good note
to end this interview on. Just one last thing. Is there going to
be another five year pause between albums, or . . .

(BA): No, definitely not. You gotta
remember really, we've put out recordings in the meantime, since
our last album, "Knock Yer Block Off". After that time,
it was a year before we integrated our new guitar player and we
did some tours with some temp guitar players, and we had Ace in
the band for six months before we made him an official member. We
thought this was very wise on our behalf. This was another reason
we chose him. We were going very business-like about the way we
were going about selecting our guitarist. We wanted him to be
"that guy." In the year that followed, we put out that
live album with songs that were singles. We wanted to be on a
label that we wouldn't regret later where we rushed into a deal
just because it was thrown at us, and we didn't want to be put
into that position this time, and thank God we're not.

Special thanks to BA for spending
countless hours talking to me for this interview. The rest of the
band for spending countless hours talking to me just for the hell
of it. Wolf for scanning the pictures for me, and God, for being
more than just "Dog" spelled backward.
-Alex